Tigers blow past Rays, 10-1

Tuesday, they got more.Runs have been hard for any lineup facing Tampa Bay lefty Matt Moore all season.

Tuesday, he gave up more — a lot more.

The third-year southpaw came in with an American League-best eight wins and no losses, and the third-best ERA in the league, but gave up a season-high six runs without escaping the third inning, as the Tigers rolled to a 10-1 win.

It’s what the Tigers (31-25) are supposed to do against pitchers — and haven’t been in recent days.

“I think one of the things that’s always interesting to me, is that if attention gets brought to a certain thing. But you gotta remember we got shut out about two out of three days, then we got two runs. We’re not scoring runs. We scored them in that one lopsided game, but we’re not scoring runs,” said Tigers manager Jim Leyland, who noted people were more fixated on the bullpen’s shortfalls than those of the offense.

“That, to me is the one thing we’re supposed to be able to do. We’re a little bit short, but everybody has that issue.”

The highest-scoring offense in all of baseball for a large portion of the first third of the season, the Tigers scored eight runs in their recent four-game losing skid. Half of the runs the offense scored on a 1-4 road swing came in one game — the 10-3 victory Saturday that was the team’s only win on the two-city trip.

Coming in, the Tigers were 25-5 when scoring five or more runs, and 5-20 when scoring four or less.

Lately, they’ve been on the less side, not the more.

“There’s no question. I’m not bringing it up for a diversionary tactic. I’m just saying, that sometimes, it’s misleading what’s going on, if one thing happened, and that’s the big topic,” Leyland said Tuesday afternoon.

“But you look at the overall thing, we got shut out the last day we were here, 1-0. We got beat over in Pittsburgh, 1-0. We scored two runs Sunday in Baltimore.

“It’s usually a combination of things when you’re not doing well: You’re not managing good enough, you’re not pitching good enough, you’re not hitting good enough, you’re not playing defense good enough.

“Normally, everybody contributes when you’re doing good, and normally most people contribute when you’re not doing good.”

Tuesday, everyone was contributing good things.

The Rays got on the board first, when Evan Longoria led off the second inning wit a triple, and scored on a Desmond Jennings sacrifice fly to center field.

But the Tigers, who worked southpaw Matt Moore for 30 pitches in the first inning without any payoff, would strike right back in the second.

Matt Tuiasosopo’s RBI double tied it at 1-1, then Omar Infante put the Tigers on top with a sacrifice fly. Moore issued back-to-back two-out walks to Torii Hunter and Miguel Cabrera, loading the bases for Prince Fielder, and he responded with a two-run single over the shifted defense to make it 4-1.

Fielder is now 8-for-9 with a walk and 10 RBI the last 10 times Cabrera has been walked in front of him.

The four runs the Tigers scored in the second matched the most Moore had given up in any start this season.

They’d tack on two more in the third, when Jhonny Peralta led off with a double, and scored on Avisail Garcia’s RBI single. Another run would come in on Omar Infante’s bases-loaded walk — Moore’s season-high sixth, coming against the last batter he’d face — but the Rays had to feel lucky that was all, when reliever Alex Torres struck out Cabrera and Fielder with the bases loaded to end the inning.

Omar Infante made it 7-1 with a two-out solo home run in the fifth inning.

Cabrera singled in the sixth, then went first-to-third on a wild pitch, setting up a sacrifice fly for Fielder. The Tigers’ cleanup hitter would add a solo homer in the eighth — his third home run in three games — giving him four RBI on the night. Don Kelly added an RBI single two batters later.

The Tigers finished in double digits in runs for the eighth time this season, and with 15 or more hits for the ninth time.

It was certainly more than enough run support for Anibal Sanchez, who struck out nine. He ended five of his seven innings with a strikeout, extending the Tigers’ MLB-leading total of inning-ending whiffs to 199.

Sanchez has struck out eight or more in nine of 12 starts this season.

Matthew B. Mowery covers the Tigers for Digital First Media. Read his “Out of Left Field” blog at opoutofleftfield.blogspot.com.